{"id":17661,"date":"2023-04-28T00:18:16","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T00:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/thematic-review-research-essay-the-transformation-of-mrs-peters-an-analysis-of-a-jury-of-her-peers-by-dan-larson\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T00:18:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T00:18:16","slug":"thematic-review-research-essay-the-transformation-of-mrs-peters-an-analysis-of-a-jury-of-her-peers-by-dan-larson","status":"publish","type":"questions","link":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/questions\/thematic-review-research-essay-the-transformation-of-mrs-peters-an-analysis-of-a-jury-of-her-peers-by-dan-larson\/","title":{"rendered":"Thematic Review Research essay: The Transformation of Mrs. Peters: An Analysis of \u2018A Jury of Her Peers\u2019\u201d by Dan Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Research Project: Review of Themes<\/span>
Our major writing project for the semester is a literary research paper. While it may have<\/span>
similarities with other research projects you have written, this paper focuses on literary criticism.<\/span>
(Chapter 33 in The Norton Introduction to Literature shorter 13th edition discusses the process of<\/span>
writing a research paper in some detail.) You will be exploring the theme of a work of literature<\/span>
by describing what other readers\/critics see as the theme of the work and contrasting their ideas<\/span>
with your understanding of the theme of the piece of literature.<\/span>
I like the image that the Norton editor Kelly J. Mays uses to describe the research process as<\/span>
listening to the ideas from a community: \u201cWe engage in a conversation with other readers about<\/span>
the meaning and significance of a particular work. Almost all texts and authors are the subject of<\/span>
actual public conversations, often extending over many years and involving numerous scholarly<\/span>
readers\u201d (The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter 11th edition 1870).<\/span>
Identifying an Author<\/span>
The first step in completing your thematic review is to identify the author (short fiction author,<\/span>
poet, or playwright) that you want to focus your research on. The author must be a writer who is<\/span>
represented in our textbook (The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter 13th edition) I would<\/span>
prefer that you use a work from our text as your primary focus.<\/span>
Research Strategy for Literary Criticism<\/span>
As you conduct your search for others\u2019 opinions about a specific literary work, you need to<\/span>
identify useful articles and books that can provide insight for you into the particular author and<\/span>
work you will be working with. Go to the Blinn Library page and look under the heading<\/span>
\u201cDatabases by Subject.\u201d Select \u201cLiterature and Literary Criticism.\u201d You will find several<\/span>
databases listed. Probably the most thorough of the options is a combination of three databases<\/span>
that you can perform a consolidated search of–Combo Search: Literary Reference Center,<\/span>
Humanities Full Text, & MLA Bibliography. Type in the title of the work and the author\u2019s name<\/span>
to locate available articles.<\/span>
You also check the Blinn Library Catalog to see if you can find literary criticism in eBooks. On<\/span>
the Blinn Library page and select \u201cSearch the Catalog.\u201d You will pull up a search screen for the<\/span>
Blinn Library collection, which has access to over 300,000 eBooks. Type the name of your<\/span>
author in the Keyword Search box. Your results will include both works BY the author and<\/span>
works ABOUT the author. You can narrow your search results by clicking on \u201cHistory and<\/span>
criticism\u201d and \u201cCriticism and interpretation\u201d in the box on the left. I would also select eBook as<\/span>
a Search refinement.<\/span>
You may search the internet for criticism, but I urge you to be selective in your choices because<\/span>
credibility is an issue when you use Google or Yahoo to perform your searches. Do not use <\/span>Wikipedia as a source of literary criticism. However, if you find a Wikipedia page on your<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
author\/literary work, you might be able to find credible sources in the References section at the<\/span>
end of the Wikipedia article. But you want to avoid anonymous sites like eNotes or CourseHero.<\/span>
When conducting a search for literary criticism, you should use Google Scholar<\/span>
(<\/span>http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/<\/span>) to access credible sources.<\/span>
In our textbook, Kelly J. Mays provides some good advice about finding reliable sources:<\/span>
\u201cYou should not rely on or cite any secondary source that is not attributed to a named author.<\/span>
This includes (but is not limited to) Wikipedia and Web sites such as Schmoop and SparkNotes.<\/span>
Because these will likely be the first things a general Google search turns up and because they<\/span>
are almost certainly familiar to you, it\u2019s tempting to rely on them. Though much of the<\/span>
information on such sites is correct and useful, much of it isn\u2019t. As important, the very virtue of<\/span>
such sites\u2014the fact that they are designed for, and mainly written by, nonexperts\u2014makes them<\/span>
inappropriate as sources for a research essay, since the goal of such an essay is to familiarize<\/span>
yourself with and enter a conversation among acknowledged experts\u201d (1956).<\/span>
Writing the Thematic Review<\/span>
Once you have located several discussions about the literary work that you are focusing on, you<\/span>
can begin sharing what those perspectives are. Include these five sections in your Review of<\/span>
Themes:<\/span>
Five Sections (1-3 paragraphs per section)<\/span>
1.<\/span> <\/span>Provide a brief overview of the plot structure and descriptions of the key characters in the<\/span>
story\/play (Use quotes from the primary source and include the text in the Works Cited<\/span>
page.)<\/span>
2.<\/span> <\/span>Describe the theme of the work as identified by a critic (Make sure to integrate quotes<\/span>
from the critic\u2019s writing to provide a feel for the critic\u2019s use of terminology and language.<\/span>
Include the critic\u2019s discussion in the Works Cited.)<\/span>
3.<\/span> <\/span>Describe the theme of the work as identified by a second critic (Make sure to integrate<\/span>
quotes from the critic\u2019s writing to provide a feel for the critic\u2019s use of terminology and<\/span>
language. Include the critic\u2019s discussion in the Works Cited.)<\/span>
4.<\/span> <\/span>Describe the theme of the work as identified by another critic (Make sure to integrate<\/span>
quotes from the critic\u2019s writing to provide a feel for the critic\u2019s use of terminology and<\/span>
language. Include the critic\u2019s discussion in the Works Cited.)<\/span>
5.<\/span> <\/span>Discuss your understanding of the theme of the story\/play. You may agree with one of<\/span>
the critics or you might decide to disagree with a critic\u2019s perspective and demonstrate <\/span>why you see the story\u2019s theme differently. Or you might want to focus on a theme that<\/span><\/div>\n

you think was ignored by the critics.<\/span>
The Works Cited page should have four entries: the primary work and the three critical texts.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research Project: Review of ThemesOur major writing project for the semester is a literary research paper. While it may havesimilarities with other research projects you have written, this paper focuses on literary criticism.(Chapter 33 in The Norton Introduction to Literature shorter 13th edition discusses the process ofwriting a research paper in some detail.) You will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"disciplines":[186],"paper_types":[],"tagged":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/17661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/questions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/questions\/17661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=17661"},{"taxonomy":"paper_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/paper_types?post=17661"},{"taxonomy":"tagged","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodacademic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tagged?post=17661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}